When the Timberwolves hired Tom Thibodeau as coach and president of basketball operations two summers ago, the anticipated marriage with Karl-Anthony Towns had mouths watering across the Twin Cities and knees quaking across the NBA.

Thibodeau helped Joakim Noah become an MVP candidate in Chicago, so what could he do with a post player as talented as Towns? The hard-nosed coach’s attention to detail would help Towns on the defensive end and his willingness to run things through Towns at the elbow would unlock even more of the Kentucky center’s offensive prowess.

The pairing has now worked together for 107 games and everyone continues to wait for things to click. Towns has frustrated coaches and players with his miscues on the defensive end, while not looking nearly as comfortable and dominant this season on the offensive end.

As the Wolves have barreled through the first 25 games of this season in fits and starts, the need for common ground to be established on that front remains the biggest key to raising the ceiling on a team that entered the season with high expectations.

Sitting at 15-11 and in fourth place in the Western Conference after a 113-107 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night, the sky is hardly falling. The Timberwolves have been a disjointed group through the first six weeks while they try to incorporate four new faces who hold significant roles.

And while Towns and Thibodeau haven’t been able to find the right mix yet together on the court, there remains evidence that the relationship is far from lost. Towns will often parrot some of Thibodeau’s pet phrases in postgame interviews while dissecting the team’s performance. And Thibodeau has complimented Towns on his willingness to sacrifice shots and touches on a team with so much offensive talent around him.

But the two prideful and sometimes stubborn personalities have not yet discovered the synergy many expected right off the bat. Until that happens, the path to Western Conference contention that the team has tried to expedite with the acquisitions of Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford will remain full of stops and starts.

For a player voted by the league’s GMs as the one they would most like to build a franchise around each of the last two seasons and a coach known for being able to squeeze every bit of potential out of the teams he leads, the time is nearing for a connection to be forged.

On offense

Even with the relentlessness of Butler, the wizardry of Crawford and the athleticism of Andrew Wiggins, Towns remains the most gifted offensive player on the team. He is the quintessential new-age big man, a 7-footer who can put the ball on the floor, shoot the 3-pointer and attack the offensive glass.

And while Thibodeau has stressed the need for Towns, Butler and Wiggins to sacrifice shots and statistics for the greater good, Towns has curiously been a bystander on the offensive end in some of the Wolves’ most disappointing performances.

In their most recent loss — a slog of a game against a Memphis team that had lost 11 straight, had recently fired its coach and was missing two of its three best players — Towns took six shots, including only three in the first three quarters. It was his fewest number of attempts in a game since Jan. 23, 2016, three months into his rookie season.

After the game Thibodeau told reporters in Memphis that the Grizzlies were being aggressive in their doubling of Towns in an effort to force the Timberwolves to beat them in other ways. Thibodeau said he was pleased with the way Towns didn’t force the issue and moved the ball to try to get teammates better looks.

Towns’ three assists were more than either of the team’s point guards accumulated during the game. But it hasn’t been the first time the Wolves have had difficulty getting Towns involved offensively this season. He had just two points on nine shots in the first three quarters against Miami on Nov. 24 before padding his stats in garbage time.

In Charlotte, Towns took just five shots in the first three quarters of a convincing loss to the Hornets and his listless performance in a home loss to Detroit on Nov. 19 drew a blunt assessment from Thibodeau.

“He’s got to keep moving,” Thibodeau said. “That’s a big part of the problem. They’re looking for him. If he stands stationary, you’re not going to get the ball. You have to keep moving, and you have to execute. He scored some at the end, but it was meaningless.”

Prior to the game against the Clippers, Towns ranked fourth on the team in usage rate, behind Crawford, Butler and Wiggins, who are all ball-dominant wings. Over the previous five games, his usage in the fourth quarter has plummeted to .172, fifth on the team.

For a player who averaged 28.4 points, 12.7 rebounds and shot 44.4 percent on 3s over the final 41 games of last season in his first year under Thibodeau, that is simply not enough.

He is taking 24.6 percent of his field-goal attempts from 3-point range, up from 18.6 percent last year, to emphasize efficiency. His post-ups are down from 25.5 percent of his shots last year to 20.8 percent this year while he is shooting 16.5 percent of his shots as spot-up jumpers compared with 11.7 percent last season, per Synergy Sports.

And with Butler in the mix, Towns is taking fewer shots in the fourth quarter than in any other period. Last year the fourth quarter was his second-most aggressive period from a shot-taking standpoint.

He was most prolific against Phoenix on Nov. 26, scoring 32 points on 26 shots, and afterward it was clear that he is still getting used to the new way of doing things.

“I felt like that I got a lot of shots that I took a lot last year,” Towns said after that game. “I shot a lot today. I’m not used to that. We did a great job of trying to be aggressive, just trying to be ultra-aggressive tonight and find my shots and trying to find ways to benefit the team in all sorts of ways.”

There is no target amount of shots for Towns, Butler or anyone else in Thibodeau’s offense, which is ranked fifth in the league, per NBA.com. Thibodeau said he believes Wiggins, Towns and Butler have all done a good job of sharing the load.

“You have to have a willingness to run the floor, to move block to block, to make the right play. He’ll do that,” Thibodeau said of Towns. “When you say how many shots, the game tells you how many shots. And it’s you’re willingness to share with your teammates. Because it’s not only bringing the best out of yourself, a great player brings the best out of everyone around him.”

On defense

Towns, a No. 1 overall pick who the Timberwolves believed gave them a true face-of-the-franchise type player for the first time since Kevin Garnett, was rarely criticized in his first two seasons in the league.

His performance defensively has opened him up to that criticism, which is only exacerbated by playing for a defensive-minded coach who brought in Butler and Gibson with the express purpose of showing the young players on the team the importance of playing defense.

Even with the two rugged veterans in the fold, the Wolves are 25th in defensive rating, which is nowhere near the level of improvement anyone expected in Thibodeau’s second season.

Towns has been in the middle of the struggles, literally and figuratively. His defensive rating of 108.8 points per 100 possessions is 78th in the NBA and 45th among those that the league qualifies as centers, below the likes of Nikola Jokic, Enes Kanter and Dirk Nowitzki.

Thibodeau has cited communication and awareness as two of the main pitfalls when it comes to the team's defensive shortcomings. He is hopeful that when the schedule lightens up and allows more practice time, some of the looseness and disconnection can be tightened up.

Towns has said grasping Thibodeau’s defensive concepts has been a challenge given their stark differences from what he did in college at Kentucky. He is often trailing the play and caught out of position, which leads to easy looks.

While trying to examine what's not clicking with the Timberwolves, a few videos that jump out here … First here is a synopsis of Towns' confusion on the defensive end. pic.twitter.com/PQ8uajbXYR

His errors cause considerable consternation for Butler and Gibson, the two Thibs acolytes who clearly have a far superior understanding and commitment to the coach’s principles than any other players on the roster.

Gibson has been preaching patience while Towns, Wiggins and the rest of the younger players come around.

Butler has been a little more frontal in his assessment. He has never called out Towns or Wiggins by name, but the targets of his constant urging of the team in general to start taking things more seriously on that end of the court isn’t difficult to ascertain.

“You can’t want to outscore the opposing team,” Butler said after a tight win over the Clippers on Sunday. “We’ve got some phenomenal scorers, guys that can put the ball in the basket better than a lot of guys in this league. You’ve got to want to guard, give that second effort, show when you’re supposed to show. We can’t just make up stuff ourselves on that end of the floor.”

Thibodeau said he has seen improvement from all of his young players on defense. Always beware small sample sizes, but in the last five games Towns leads the Timberwolves with a 100.4 defensive rating. His net rating of 8.2 is second only to Butler’s 12.4 over that same span.

“They’re earnest. They’ve spent a lot of time,” Thibodeau said of Towns and Wiggins. “On our off days they will come in and they’re watching film with me. They’re putting the work into it, but we’re down players. That’s part of it, too. But the important thing is to scratch out wins and keep going.”

Still searching

When Towns is not involved offensively, he can lose focus on the other end of the floor. It's up to Thibodeau, Butler and the rest of the Wolves to get their most gifted offensive player more touches in situations where he can do damage.

And it's up to Towns, who at 22 is still just a baby in the league, to devote more energy and effort on the defensive end.

That's exactly what happened against the Clippers, when Towns was involved early and often on the offensive end. He finished with 21 points, 12 rebounds and four assists. More importantly, he had four blocks and two steals and was an imposing force in the paint in the fourth quarter to help the Wolves close it out.

The good news for the Wolves is they have been able to pile up wins early while working toward solutions to many of their issues. They are 12-5 in the conference, 4-1 in the Northwest Division and 8-4 at home, which all bode well for a surge if things come together.

If the Wolves can get everyone on the same page, if they can unlock Towns’ offensive potential while getting a more consistent presence in the paint on the defensive end, they suddenly become so much more dangerous.

This is the plight of teams in their relatively formative stages, one that Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra detailed when discussing the Grizzlies’ firing of coach David Fizdale in November. The Heat were 9-8 in the first 17 games with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and were struggling to establish a flow on offense and communication on defense.

When things were going wrong and panic was starting to descend on the team from the outside, Spoelstra recalled a conversation he had with owner Micky Arison and president Pat Riley.

“Our owner and our president just looked down,” Spoelstra told reporters in Miami, “and said, ‘Hey, figure it out. That’s all we got for you. Figure it out.’”

That’s where the Wolves are now and it’s on everyone — Thibs, Towns, Butler, Wiggins, everyone. It hasn’t always been pretty. They have yet to truly connect.

Now it's time for them to figure it out.

(Top image: Karl-Anthony Towns and Tom Thibodeau have not clicked the way many expected when Thibodeau was first hired. The connection is key to the Timberwolves' fortunes. Credit: Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports)

Jon Krawczynski is a Senior Writer for The Athletic Minnesota covering the Timberwolves, the NBA and the Vikings. Jon joined The Athletic after 16 years at The Associated Press, where he covered three Olympics, three NBA Finals, two Ryder Cups and the 2009 NFC championship game. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonKrawczynski.